The consumer electronics market is still affected by the repeated epidemics and the supply chain continues to be tight. Nevertheless, we still saw a number of eye-catching new hardware products and software updates in H1. If the keyword of the entire consumer electronics market in 2021 is “foldable smartphone”, it is almost predictable that “tablet computer” will become the keyword of the consumer electronics market in 2022. From the beginning of the year to June, Oppo, Vivo, Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, Realme and other smartphone manufacturers have all released tablets. The tablet market is now getting much more options which is a good thing for customers.
Why are there so many tablets?
The slowdown in shipment growth, stagnant technology, and prolonged replacement cycles are the reasons why many mobile phone manufacturers are initially exploring the tablet PC market. According to the latest data report released by the market research agency IDC, in the first quarter of 2022, the shipment of China’s smartphone market was about 74.2 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 14.1%.
IDC claims that factors such as the impact of the continuous epidemic rebound on consumer budgets and the small scale of new product upgrades have led to continued sluggish market demand. This has led many mobile phone manufacturers to adopt more stable and conservative operations. strategy. The market will face huge challenges throughout the year.
Without the emergence of additional positive stimuli, China’s smartphone market capacity may fall below the 300 million mark in 2022. It is conceivable that with the current situation that the mobile phone system, hardware, and experience become more serious. Tablet computers may not become the “cash cow” business of various manufacturers in the future. However, its importance is now very different from the past.
Google to return to the tablet market
In fact, Google mentioned at I/O 2022 in May that it will return to the tablet market next year. The company will launch a series of Pixel tablets. However, just like its smartphones and watches, the tablet business will not be Google’s main business. The company will also venture into the foldable smartphone market.
The good news is that over the next year, we’ll see more useful features and even major changes in Android tablets. The bad news is that this is enough time for developers to do the adaptation work for a while. In any case, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers will go all the way on the tablet road.
Gizchina News of the week
Upcoming trends for tablet PCs
From the presentations on iPadOS 16 and Google I/O, we can see several trends for the tablet in the future. The first is a more professional and larger screen. There are rumours that next year Apple will launch a 14.1-inch iPad product. This may be different from the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Going bigger is not the first of its kind for Apple. Earlier this year, Samsung’s Tab S8 Ultra pulled the size of the tablet to 14.6 inches. The big screen and top-heavy accessories mean that these devices will also be expensive.
The second trend is that there will be more professional software on the tablet platform. As of today, many applications are not optimized for tablets. This means that when they work on a tablet, they don’t work properly. Of course, in the future, we will see many tablet versions of apps.
At present, even iPadOS cannot avoid some software “dealing” with upgrades for adaptation. When an app is not optimized for a large display, it may be problematic. The consequence of this operation is that on a large 10-inch screen, the content may not display properly. However, when a smartphone app is on a tablet, its operating experience may be very terrible.
Next, with the system optimization of iPadOS and Android, the addition of more functions, and the opening of interfaces, apps that are individually adapted will gain more revenue and even attention.
Finally, there is the fusion of tablet, laptop and desktop
In recent times, it is difficult to find a “techie” who uses a single device. In fact, most tech nerds today has a wide range of devices including a smartphone, tablet, desktop and even a laptop. However, there is a strong skew in the distribution of the operating systems. These systems are often incompatible with each other. Even within the same brand, it is technically impossible to have a seamless collaboration. For instance, transferring a job you did on macOS to iPadOS may not be straightforward even when they are from the same brand.
However, Huawei is changing the narrative with its seamless laptop-tablet collaboration. Other brands are now towing this path. Apple iPadOS and macOS are now approaching a seamless collaboration. In the future, there will be a system-level integration of these two platforms. The most notable update in iPadOS 16 is the addition of pre-stage scheduling. This increases the iPad’s usability for multitasking and boosts productivity. The pre-stage scheduling has the same operation method, usage logic and interface presentation on iPadOS 16 and macOS 13.
The Android tablet will also gain more practical and advanced functions in the connection with Windows in the future. Thus, the application of tablet useability will be better.
Conclusion
Since the advent of the pandemic, the demand for large-screen displays has been on the rise. This is because many people now have to work and even school from home. This is a function that the small displays of smartphones can not handle. With this higher demand, more smartphone brands are now seeing a need to swiftly enter the tablet market.
